Little is known about his early years, except that he was born in Baltimore, Maryland on December 5, 1862, to William and Emma Atkinson, both of whom were born in Maryland also.

He married Margaret Foster Black of Beverley, New Jersey on October 1889 and they had two children. He pursued a business career from 1882 onwards and in 1894 he was admitted as an attorney to the Bars of Pennsylvania. Whilst he gained much material success in his profession as a lawyer, the stress and over-strain eventually took its toll.

Atkinson experienced a complete physical and mental breakdown, and financial disaster as a result of excessive materialism. He began looking for healing and found it in the late 1880's with New Thought. Through the application of New Thought Principles and Practice he had a complete recovery with consequent perfect health, mental vigor and material prosperity.

This prompted him to write some articles on New Thought, which at the time was more commonly called Mental Science. In 1889 New Thought pioneer Charles Fillmore published Atkinson's article "A Mental Science Catechism," in the periodical, Modern Thought.

By the early 1890's, the work of Emma Curtis Hopkins transformed Chicago into a major mecca of New Thought. This motivated Atkinson to move there and become an active promoter of New Thought through editing and writing.